THE THREE BLACK DOGS
The wind roared through the tall fir-trees, and swept the snow-flakes in masses against the window-panes; the rafters rattled and the casements clattered; but dismally, above the roaring and the clattering, sounded the howling of three black dogs at the cottage-door; for their good master lay on the pallet within, near his end, and never more should he urge them on to the joyous hunt.
The old man was stark and grey; one bony hand held fast the bed-clothes with convulsive clutch, and one rested in benediction on the dark locks of his only son kneeling by his side. Long he lay as if at the last gasp. Then suddenly raising his weary head from the pillow, he exclaimed, “Jössl, my son, forget not to pray for your father when he is no more.” And Jössl sobbed in reply.
“Jössl,” continued the old man, with painful effort, “you know fortune has never favoured me in this world: you are my noble boy, and I would have left you rich enough to be a great man, as your looks would have you – but it was not to be! Jössl, it was not to be!” and the old man sank back upon the bed, and hid his face and wept.
“Father, you have taught me to labour, to be honest, to face danger, and to fear God!” said the brave youth, throwing himself upon him and caressing his hollow cheeks; “that was the best inheritance you could leave me.”
“Well said! my noble son,” replied the father. “But you are young to rough the world by yourself; and I have nothing to leave you but the Three Black Dogs – my faithful dogs – they are howling my death-knell without. Let them in, Jössl – they are all you have now in the world!”
Jössl went to let them in; and as he did so the old man’s eyes glazed over and his spirit fled, and Jössl returned to find only a corpse.
The Three Black Dogs ceased their howling when they saw his grief, and came and fawned upon him and licked his hands. For three days they remained mourning together; and then the men came and buried the father. Other people came to live in the cottage, and Jössl went out to wander over the wide world, the Three Black Dogs following behind.
When there was a day’s work to be done they fared well enough. Though he had so fair a face and so noble a bearing, Jössl was always ready to apply his stalwart limbs to labour, and what he earned he shared with the Three Black Dogs, who whined and fawned and seemed to say, —
“We are eating your bread in idleness now; but never mind, the day will come when we will earn you yours.”
But when there was no work to be had, when the storm beat and the winter wind raged, Jössl was fain to share a peasant’s meal where he could find pity by the way, and many there were who said, “God be gracious unto thee, my son,” when they saw his comely face; but the Black Dogs slunk away, as if ashamed that their master’s son should have to beg, not only for himself, but for them also.
Better times came with the spring; and then there was the hay-cutting, and the harvesting, and the vintage, and Jössl found plenty of work. But still he journeyed on, and the Three Black Dogs behind.
At last he saw in the distance the towers of a great city, and he hasted on, for all his life he had lived in the mountains, and had never seen a town.
But when he reached it, he found that though it was a vast city, it was empty and desolate. Broad well-paved roads crossed it, but they were more deserted than the mountain-tracks. There were workshops, and smithies, and foundries, and ovens, but all silent and empty, and no sound was heard! Then he looked up, and saw that every house was draped with black, and black banners hung from the towers and palaces.
Still not a human being appeared, either in the public squares or at the house-windows; so he still wandered on, and the Three Black Dogs behind.
At last he espied in the distance a waggoner with his team coming through the principal road which traversed the city, and lost no time in making his way up to him and asking what this unearthly stillness meant.
The waggoner cracked his whip and went on, as if he were frightened and in a hurry; but Jössl kept up with him. So he told him, as they went along, that for many years past a great Dragon had devastated the country, eating up all the inhabitants he found in the way, so that every one shunned the streets; nor should he be going through now, but that need obliged him to pass that way, and he got through the place as quickly as he could. But, he added, there was less danger for him now, because lately they had found that if every morning some one was put in his way to devour, that served him for the day, and he left off teasing and worrying others as he had been used to do; so that now a lot was cast every day, and upon whomsoever of the inhabitants the lot fell, he had to go out upon the highway early the next morning that the dragon might devour him and spare the rest.
Just then a crier came into the street, and proclaimed that the lot that day had fallen on the king’s daughter, and that to-morrow morning she must be exposed to the dragon.
The people, who had come to the windows to hear what the crier had to say, now no longer kept within doors. Every one was so shocked to think that the lot had fallen on their beautiful young princess, that they all came running out into the streets to bewail her fate aloud; and the old king himself came into their midst, tearing his clothes and plucking out his white hair, while the tears ran fast down his venerable beard.
When Jössl saw that, it reminded him of his own father, and he could not bear to see his tears.
Then the king sent the crier out again to proclaim that if any one would fight the dragon, and deliver his daughter, he should have her hand, together with all his kingdom. But the fear of the dragon was so great on all the people of the city that there was not one would venture to encounter it, even for the sake of such a prize.
Every hour through the day the crier went out and renewed the proclamation. But every one was too much afraid of the dragon to make the venture, and Jössl, though he felt he would have courage to meet the dragon; could not find heart to come forward before all the people of the king’s court, and profess to do what no one else could do. So the hours went by all through the day and all through the night, and no one had appeared to deliver the princess.
Then daybreak came, and with it the mournful procession which was to conduct the victim to the outskirts of the city; and all the people came out to see it, weeping. The old king came down the steps of the palace to deliver up his daughter; and it was all the people could do to hold him back from giving himself up in her place.
But when the moment of parting from her came, the thought was so dreadful that he could not bring himself to make the sacrifice; and when he should have given her up he only clasped her the tighter in his arms. Then the people began to murmur. They said, “The hour is advancing, and the dragon will be upon us, and make havoc among us all. When the lot fell upon one of us, we gave up our wives, and our fathers, and our children; and now the same misfortune has visited you, you must do no less;” and as the time wore on they grew more and more angry and discontented.
This increased the distress and terror of the king, and he raved with despair.
When Jössl found matters as bad as this, he forgot his bashfulness, and coming forward through the midst of the crowd, he asked permission to go out to meet the dragon; “and if I fail,” he added, “at least I shall have prolonged the most precious life by one day;” and he bent down and kissed the hem of the princess’s garment.
When the princess heard his generous words she took heart, and looked up, and was right glad to see one of such noble bearing for her deliverer. But the old king, without stopping to look at him, threw himself on his neck and kissed him with delight, and called him his son, and promised him there was nothing of all the crier had proclaimed that should not be fulfilled.
The discontent of the people was changed into admiration; and they accompanied Jössl to the city gates with shouts of encouragement as he went forth to meet the dragon, and the Three Black Dogs behind.
If the king’s daughter had been pleased with the appearance of her deliverer, Jössl had every reason to be no less delighted with that of the lady to whom he was about to devote his life.
Full of hope and enthusiasm, he passed on through the midst of the people – regardless of their shouts, for he was thinking only of her – and the Three Black Dogs behind.
It was past the time when the dragon usually received his victim, and he was advancing rapidly towards the city walls, roaring horribly, and “swinging the scaly horrors of his folded tail.” The fury of the monster might have made a more practised arm tremble, but Jössl thought of his father’s desire that he should be a great man, and do brave deeds, and his courage only seemed to grow as the danger approached. He walked so straight towards the dragon, with a step so firm and so unlike the trembling gait of his usual victims, that it almost disconcerted him. When they had approached each other within a hundred paces, Jössl called to his dog Lightning, “At him, good dog!” At the first sound of his voice Lightning sprang to the attack, and with such celerity that the dragon had no time to decide how to meet his antagonist.
“Fetch him down, Springer!” cried Jössl next; and the second dog, following close on Lightning’s track, sprang upon the dragon’s neck, and held him to the ground.
“Finish him, Gulper!” shouted Jössl; and the third dog, panting for the order, was even with the others in a trice, and fixing his great fangs in the dragon’s flesh, snapped his spine like glass, and bounded back with delight to his master’s feet.
Jössl, only stopping to caress his dogs, drew his knife, and cut out the dragon’s tongue; and then returned to the city with his trophy, and the Three Black Dogs behind.
If the people had uttered jubilant shouts when he started, how much more now at his victorious return! The king and his daughter heard the shout in their palace, and came down to meet the conqueror.
“Behold my daughter!” said the old king: “take her; she is yours, and my kingdom with her! I owe all to you, and in return I give you all I have.”
“Nay, sire,” interposed Jössl; “that you give me permission to approach the princess is all I ask, and that she will deign to let me think that I may be one day found not unworthy of her hand. But as regards your kingdom, that is not for me. I am but a poor lad, and have never had any thing to command but my Three Black Dogs: how should I, then, order the affairs of a kingdom?”
The king and all the people, and the princess above all, were pleased with his modesty and grace; and they sounded his praises, and those of his Three Black Dogs too, and conducted them with him to the palace, where Jössl received a suit of embroidered clothes and the title of duke, and was seated next the princess.
The king, finding that he was resolute in refusing to accept the crown, determined to adopt him for his son; and had him instructed in every thing becoming a prince, so that he might be fit to succeed him at his death. To the Three Black Dogs were assigned three kennels and three collars of gold, with three pages to wait on them; and whenever Jössl went on a hunting-party, his Three Black Dogs had precedence of all the king’s dogs.
As time wore on Jössl had other opportunities of distinguishing himself; and by little and little he came to be acknowledged as the most accomplished courtier and the most valiant soldier in the kingdom.
The princess had admired his good looks and his self-devotion from the first, but when she found him so admired and courted by all the world too, her esteem and her love for him grew every day, till at last she consented to fulfil the king’s wish, and they were married with great pomp and rejoicing. Never was there a handsomer pair; and never was there a braver procession of lords and ladies and attendants, than that which followed them that day, with music and with bells, and the Three Black Dogs behind.
⁂ There are countless spots in Tirol in which tales are traditional of brave peasants, hunters, and woodmen delivering the place out of some need or danger, symbolized as “a dragon,” similar in the main to the above, but with varieties of local colouring. I gave the preference to the above for the sake of the Three Black Dogs.
OTTILIA AND THE DEATH’S HEAD;
OR,
“PUT YOUR TRUST IN PROVIDENCE.”
In the little town of Schwatz, on the Inn, the chief river of Tirol, there lived once a poor little peasant-girl named Ottilia. Ottilia had been very fond of her dear mother, and cried bitterly when she had the great misfortune to lose her. She tried hard to do all she had seen her mother do: she swept the house and milked the cow, and baked the bread, and stitched at her father’s clothes; but she could not, with all her diligence, get through it all as her mother did. The place began to get into disorder, and the pigs and the fowls fought, and she could not keep them apart, and she could not manage the spinning; and what was worst of all, she could not carry in the loads of hay, by which her mother had earned the few pence that eked out her father’s scanty wages.
To keep the house straight, the good man found himself obliged to take another wife; and one day he brought home the tall Sennal, and told Ottilia she was to be her mother.
When poor little Ottilia heard the tall, hard, bony woman called “her mother,” she burst out into passionate tears, and declared she should never be her mother, and she would never pay her obedience!
Now the tall Sennal was not a bad woman, but she was angry when the child set herself against her; and so there was continual anger between the two. When she told Ottilia to do any thing, Ottilia refused to do it, lest she should be thought to be thereby regarding her as her mother, which seemed to her a kind of sacrilege; and when she tried to do any of the work of the house, her childish inexperience made her do it in a way that did not suit the tall Sennal’s thrift, so there was nothing but strife in the house. Yet the good father contrived, when he came home of an evening, to set things straight, and make peace; and though Ottilia had little pleasure, like other children of her years, yet she had a good woollen frock to keep out the cold, and bread and cheese and milk enough to drive away hunger, and, what she valued most, a father’s knee to sit on of an evening in the well-warmed room, while he kissed her and told her weird stories of the days long gone by.
But a day came – a day darkened by a terrible storm – on whose evening no father came home. The long Sennal went out with the neighbours with lanterns and horns, but the fierce winds extinguished their lights and drowned the sound of their horns; and Ottilia knelt by the side of her father’s chair, praying and crying.
She prayed and wept, and only slept a little now and then, all through the night; and in the morning some carters came in, and brought her father’s dead body, which they had found on their mountain way, under the snow, where it lay buried.
But Ottilia still knelt by her father’s chair, and felt like one in a dream, while they put him in his coffin and carried him to the churchyard ground, and the sad bells mourned.
“Go, child, and feed the pig!” exclaimed the harsh voice of the tall Sennal – and it sounded harsher than ever now, for there was none left to apply the curb. “Crying’s all very well for a bit; but you’re not going on like that all your life, I suppose?”
Ottilia felt her helplessness, and therefore resented the admonition. Without stopping to consider its reasonableness, she retorted, fiercely, —
“‘Child!’ I am no child of yours! I’ve told you so before, a thousand times; and it’s not because my father’s dead that you’re going to come over me. You think you’ll make me forget him by forbidding me to cry for him; but never, never will I forget him! nor shall you forget how he made you behave properly to me!”
The tall Sennal had more patience with her than might have been expected, and said no more for that time; but Ottilia was not won by her forbearance, and only reckoned it as a victory.
It was strife again the next day, and the next, and there was no good father to make peace. And at last the tall Sennal’s patience fairly gave way, and one day, in her provocation, she drove the child from the door, and bid her never come under her eyes again!
Her anger cooled, she could have recalled the words, but Ottilia was already far away up the mountain-path, and out of sight, gone she knew not whither.
Ottilia had no experience of want, and knew not what it was to be alone upon the mountains; all her full heart felt at the moment was, that it would be a boon to get away from the reproaches her conscience told her were not undeserved, and be alone with her parent’s memory.
Thus she wandered on, with no more consciousness of her way than just to follow it to the spot where her father died, and which had been marked by pious custom with a wayside cross, on which was painted in vivid strokes the manner of his end.
Ottilia gazed at the cruel scene till fresh tears started to her eyes, and she threw herself on the ground beside it, and cried till she knew no more where she was. Then it seemed to her as if the ground were again covered with snow, and that from under it she heard her father’s voice; and he talked to her as he used to talk of an evening by the fireside, when she was on his knee after work and he made her peace with the tall Sennal. And now he brought home to her all her naughty, senseless ways, not scolding without reason, but making all allowance for the filial love which had been at the bottom of the strife. Ottilia seemed to herself to be listening to him with great attention, but her heart misgave her. She was ready to own now that she had been very wrong, very unreasonable, and she felt really sorry for it all – so sorry that, had her home still been his, she felt that she could have brought herself to obey Sennal, so that she might not grieve him; but now – now that he was not there – suppose he should require of her that she should go back now and live with the tall Sennal, all alone! But he did not require it of her; or, at all events, in her excitement she woke with his last words sounding in her ear, which were nothing more severe than, “Put your trust in God, and all will yet be well.”
The sun had already sunk behind the mountains, the chill night air began to penetrate Ottilia’s clothing, and hunger stared her in the face. She felt very humble now, but she had no mind to go back. She rose and walked on, for numbness, as of death, was creeping over her, and she knew the mountain-folk said that to yield to that lethargy of cold was death.
On she walked, and on, and the darkness gathered thicker and thicker round her; but she thought of her guardian angel, and she was not afraid. Still the way was weary, and the air was keen, and her strength began to fail. Then suddenly, on a neighbouring peak, she descried the broken outline of a castellated building standing out against the now moonlit sky.
Gathering fresh force from hope, she picked her way over steep and stone, guiding her steps by the friendly light which beamed from a turret window. She had had time to realize her whole desolation. If heaven vouchsafed her another chance of finding a home, she mentally resolved, she would behave so as to win its blessing, with all her might.
When at last she reached the castle-gate her courage once more began to fail – what would the great people at the castle say to a poor little half-starved peasant-girl, who came without friend or warrant to disturb their rest? “Where is your trust in Providence?” said a voice within, which sounded like a memory of her father’s, and rekindled her courage.
A horn hung beside the broad portal; and when, after many timorous efforts, Ottilia had succeeded in making a note resound, she stood anxiously wondering what stern warder or fierce man-at-arms would answer the summons.
None such appeared, however. But after some moments of anxious waiting, the window whence the friendly light beamed was opened, with noise enough to make her look up, and then – what do you think she saw?
Nothing but a Death’s Head looking out of the window! Almost before she had time to be frightened, it asked her, in a very kindly voice, what was her pleasure.
“A night’s lodging and a bit of bread, for the love of Christ!” said Ottilia, faintly; and then she looked up again at the Death’s Head, and she could not resist a sense of horror and faintness that crept over her. “Put your trust in God,” whispered her father’s voice, and she made an effort to stay her teeth from chattering together.
Meantime, the Death’s Head had answered cheerily enough, “Will you promise to carry me up here again faithfully, if I come down and draw the bolt for you, and let you in?” and scarcely knowing what she said, Ottilia gave an assent.
“But think what you are saying, and swear that I can rely on you,” persisted the Death’s Head, “for, you see, it is a serious matter for me. I can easily roll down the steps, but there are a good many of them, and I can’t get up again by myself.”
“Of course you may rely on me,” now answered Ottilia, for she saw it was but her bounden duty to perform this return of kindness – and conscience seemed to have a reproach for her courageous alacrity, saying, “The tall Sennal never required of you any thing so hard as this.” “I know she didn’t,” answered Ottilia, humbly; “and this is my punishment.”
All this time the Death’s Head was coming rumbling down the stone stairs – and a hard, dismal sound it was. Clop, clop, clop, first round the turret spiral; then r-r-r-r-r-roll along the long echoing corridor; and then, clop, clop, clop once more all down the broad main staircase; then another r-r-r-r-r-roll; and finally, klump! bump! it came against the massive door.
Ottilia felt her heart go clop, clop, clop, clop, too, but she struggled hard; and the cold, and the faintness of hunger made her yet feel rejoiced to hear the Death’s Head take the bolt between its grinning teeth and draw it sharply back. The great door flew open, and Ottilia trod timidly within the welcome shelter. The memory of her father’s fate was fresh upon her, and the Death’s Head was less terrible than the pitiless snow.
Not without some difficult mental struggles Ottilia faithfully fulfilled her promise. A temptation, indeed, came to let the skull lie. It could not pursue her – it could not possibly climb up all those stairs, though it could roll down them; besides, it had declared its incapacity for the task. She could let it lie and enter into possession of the castle – it was clear there was no one else there, or the skull would not have put itself in danger by coming to the door. But honest little Ottilia repelled the thought with indignation, and, bending down, she picked up the skull, and carried it carefully up the stairs folded in her apron.
“Lay me on the table,” said the Death’s Head, when they got into the turret-chamber where the light was; “and then go down into the kitchen and make a pancake. It won’t be for want of eggs and flour and butter if it is not good, for they are there in plenty.”
“What! go all the way down to the kitchen alone, in this great strange place?” said poor little trembling Ottilia to herself. “This is worse than any thing the tall Sennal ever gave me to do indeed;” but she felt it was a punishment and a trial of her resolution, and she started to obey with brave determination.
It was a harder task even than she had imagined, for if the Death’s Head was safe up-stairs in the turret tower, the “cross-bones” were at large in the kitchen, and would get in her way whatever she turned to do.
True, her impulse for a moment was to turn and scream, and run away, but there came her father’s voice, bidding her trust in God, “And besides,” she said to herself, “what is there so very dreadful about the sight of dead bones, after all? and what harm can they do me?” So she took no notice of what was going on around her, but beat her eggs and mixed her batter, and put it on to fry, till the appetizing odour and the warmth of the fire brought back life and renewed her courage.
When Ottilia brought the pancake up into the turret-room, and laid the dish with it on the table, she observed that the side of the pancake which was turned towards the skull became black, while that nearest herself retained its own golden colour; so that her curiosity was piqued, and she was much inclined to ask about it, but she managed to keep quiet and eat her share in silence. When she had finished she took the dish and washed it up, and put all away carefully; and she was just feeling very tired when the Death’s Head said to her, “If you go up that staircase on the left, you will come to a little bedroom where you may sleep. About midnight a skeleton will come to your bedside, and try to pull you out of bed; all you have to do is not to be afraid of it, and then it can do you no harm.”
So Ottilia thanked the skull, and went up to bed. She had not been in bed more than three hours when she heard a great noise and rattling in the room, much like the noise the cross-bones had made in the kitchen while she was cooking the pancake. Then she heard the skull call up to her, “It is just midnight – remember you have only to be brave!” And as it spoke she saw a great skeleton come and stand in the bright moonbeam by her bedside! It stretched one of its long bare arms out towards her, and pulled off the bed-clothes with one bony hand and seized her by the hair with the other. But Ottilia listened for her father’s voice bidding her put her trust in Providence; and she remained quite quiet in her bed, giving no sign of fear. When the skeleton found that she was so brave, it could do nothing against her, but, after two or three ineffectual tugs, turned and went away; and she saw nothing more of it, but slept out the rest of the night in peace.
When she woke the next morning the bright sun was pouring cheerfully into the room, and by the bedside, where the skeleton had stood the night before, was a beautiful form of a woman, all clothed in white and surrounded by golden rays, to whom Ottilia said, “What do you want me to do, bright lady?”
And the vision answered, “I was the mistress of this castle, who, for my pride and vanity, was condemned to dwell in my bare bones on the same spot where I had sinned by my extravagance in dress, and other wanton habits, until one should come, for the sake of whose thrifty, humble ways, and steadfast trust in God, I should be set free.
“This you have accomplished, and now I can go to my rest; while, in gratitude, I endow you with this castle and all its lands and revenues.”
With that the bright form disappeared; and a moment afterwards Ottilia saw, through the window, a milk-white dove winging its upward flight towards heaven.
So Ottilia became a rich countess, and mistress of the lordly castle which she had entered as a suppliant. But no sooner was she installed than she sent for the long Sennal; and, having besought her pardon for all the trouble she had given her, begged her to come up to the castle and be with her. So they lived very happily together for the rest of their lives.